Federal Judge Blocks President’s New Travel Ban

NEW YORK—A federal judge in Hawaii issued an injunction temporarily blocking President Donald Trump’s new travel ban late Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson said in his ruling that the state of Hawaii had shown that it was likely to prevail in its claims that the new executive order violates the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution, which bars religious discrimination.

Since the new order was issued March 6, many groups have alleged that it was a thinly veiled version of the Muslim ban he pledged to enact during his presidential campaign.

The lawsuit, brought by Hawaii’s attorney general, Doug Chin, contended that the new order was in fact a Muslim ban, despite claims by government lawyers that Mr. Trump’s past comments had no bearing on the case before him.

“Are you saying we close our eyes to the sequence of statements before this,” the judge asked the courtroom before issuing his ruling.

The big news in the hotel world was the 2017 opening of the Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski in Havana, the city’s first proper grande dame of a hotel to open in the island nation. Located in the historic Manzana de Gómez building, Cuba’s first shopping mall in the center of Old Havana, the hotel is truly in a class of its own.
An oasis in a city that’s somewhat crumbling and …

A more complete story of how a Horizon Air employee was able to steal, fly, and subsequently crash an aircraft taken from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Friday evening is beginning to emerge as details come to light.
Richard B. Russell flew a Bombardier Dash 8 – Q400 turboprop plane for almost an hour over Puget Sound, even performing aerobatics, until it crashed on Ketron Island, off the shore of Steilacoom. Mr. Russell, …